The Thread
by GooseEgg7519
Summary: Soulmate AU [MM/HG]
1. Chapter 1

October 20th, 1925: Cottage of Ginevra Prewett, 30 miles east of Hogsmeade

"She has a thread." Ginevra Prewett had always been somewhat blunt. This was usually something Isobel McGonnagall sincerely appreciated as a personality trait. At this very moment though, Isobel was too shocked to be appreciative of anything much.

"She…" her attempt at a response died. She sat down heavily, jostling the infant she'd been attempting to soothe. A tiny, indignant scream echoed around the walls of the cottage. A tentative, elated smile began to blossom at the corners of Isobel's mouth.

"Has a soulmate thread." Ginevra nodded decisively. "Very pale blue, not active yet. Whoever he is, he hasn't been born yet." The witch waved her wand. "And probably not for a while." A bottle of firewhiskey appeared on the table.

"Not for me, Gin," Isobel protested, "I'm feeding."

"It's not for you." Ginevra retorted, pulling the cork with her teeth and taking a swig. "Although if she doesn't stop that squalling, I might give _her_ a spoonful." Plonking the bottle back on the table, she leaned back, eyeing the baby. "Poor bloody child."

"Why poor?" Isobel asked. "This world is not kind to women, a soulmate means that she'll be happy. Blissfully so." Now the shock had waned. Her daughter had a soulmate thread! Something so rare as to be almost mythical. A blue thread tethering her to someone who would literally be her other half and truest, purest love. "What more could any mother want for her child?"

"What indeed?" Ginevra turned the bottle on the table, making a scraping noise. "I know you have little time for my seeings, Isa."

Isobel bristled. Reading an aura was one thing, seeing one's future was entirely another. One was simply an extra dimension of seeing the look in one's eyes, or the set of a jaw. The latter, however, was dubious and fanciful, and certainly not something she want her child to be saddled with. "None of your nonsense, Gin." she ground out.

"Just listen for a moment." Ginevra held up her hand, to forestall the retort she saw spring to Isobel's lips. "It's not a true seeing, just some extra observations from her aura." She wrapped one hand around the bottle again.

Isobel shifted her weight and the baby at the same time, considering. She and Ginevra had been best friends since Hogwarts. Sorted into Gryffindor together, Ginevra had been the one to console and support her through her family's ire and disappointment that she had not been a Slytherin. The Borthwicks were one of the oldest pureblood families, but diminished - the blood having dwindled to almost a trickle. That Isobel had then turned around and married Robert McGonnagall - a muggle(!) and a preacher of the ridiculous muggle religion to compound the insult - had been too much for her family. They dared not disown her, as she was their only heir. Instead they mourned her as though she were dead, and hadn't spoken to her since she'd announced the engagement.

And Ginevra had been there for her though it all. Her one extant connection to the magical world she'd forsworn to marry Robert. The Prewetts were a large, messy, usually matrilineal family, as pureblood as Isobel's own, but far less concerned about it. Adding a sister had required little thought on Ginevra's part, something for which Isobel would always be grateful. The Prewetts were also seers. Mother to daughter with origins reaching back into the murky depths of the Eternal War, some with talents lesser or greater, but all able to clearly see auras, the shimmer of light around every individual that denoted certain fundamental elements of their souls.

Isobel McGonnagall, whilst no longer considering herself a Borthwick, was still in many ways a product of her upbringing. Stern and pragmatic to a fault, she'd little time for fortune-telling. But if it what Ginevra had to tell her was simply about her daughter's aura…

"Oh, go on then." She sighed. "Spit it out."

Ginevra eyed her thoughtfully. "She'll be a witch," she began.

Isobel nodded. The odds had been in favour of it. Robert had no idea that she herself was magical, she'd obeyed the Statue to the letter and the guilt had torn at her daily. But she had known that their offspring would likely be as magical as she herself was, and that when their powers became obvious he would have to be told the truth. She did not look forward to it, but hoped that their deep and abiding love would see them through it.

"And she'll be powerful, Isobel. More powerful than any witch for many an age."

Isobel looked down at the now sleeping infant, who had thankfully quietened without the threatened dose of whisky. Tiny, indistinct features. Button nose, unresolved eye colour, wisps of dark hair on the velvet scalp. First a soulmate, now the most powerful witch in years? So much for such a scrap of a girl to live up to!

Ginevra shifted and took another swig of the firewhiskey. "Think about it, Isa. She has so much potential - she could do anything! It's all there; courage, determination, intelligence, power. But who's going to take her seriously when they decide she's just waiting around for her husband to whisk her off into wedded soulmate bliss?"

Isobel frowned. "If she's as powerful as you say, they'll be forced to take her seriously!"

"These times are not congenial to witches, Isa, you know that. In times past - hopefully in the future too - a woman could be judged on her own merit AND have a family. No so right now. The few women who are recognised in their own right today are spinsters and widows. Women with husbands and families are expected to have those as their primary concern. I want to see her have the opportunity to realise her potential. To BE someone and make an impact on the world. And I know you want that for her too."

Isobel signed heavily through her nose. Her friend was right, of course. "Be that as it may, what can we do about it? I know you said her soulmate hasn't been born yet, but sooner or later he will be. And she'll marry him and begin a family regardless. And then yes, as you say, she'll be relegated to to the obscurity that seems to be that fate of most women these days."

Ginevra leaned forward, a glint in her eye. Isobel swallowed. At Hogwarts, that glint had seen them get into all sorts of trouble. "Her soulmate won't be born for many years. I see that." Isobel frowned again, but before she could speak, Ginevra barreled on. "I know, but I can see it, Isa. She'll be fifty before that thread turns bright. And in the meantime if we glamour it, then no-one will see it. Without the expectation of family she'll be able to do whatever she wants. Force people to take notice of her!"

"Can we do that? Without damaging it?" Whilst acknowledging that she did indeed want her daughter to have the opportunity to do great things, she didn't want to endanger the joy and comfort that were the rewards of finding one's soulmate.

"It'll be fine. Just means that no-one who might peek into her aura will be able to see the thread. They'll just see her aura. Easy. Oh, unless they're a Prewett of my direct line. Can't block myself. Doesn't work like that." She leaned back. "One other thing though,"

Isobel raised her eyebrow. She'd guessed there'd be some sort of caveat.

"The glamour will affect the entire thread."

"What does that mean?"

Ginevra shrugged. "When the soulmate is born, it'll cover his end of the thread as well. No-one who can see his aura will see it in there either."

Isobel rocked her daughter softly. Soulmates were rare enough that there were only a couple every few generations. Whilst it was possible for the mates to find one another by following the thread itself, they most commonly found one another by seeking out the only other person born with a thread. If that thread was obscured on both ends, how would they find one another?

"Me or someone in my line will find them." Ginevra seemed to read her mind. "Please, Isa, let me give her this chance. Not just for her, but for all witches. Maybe she's the one who will remind the world what we can do and be, sex be damned!"

Isobel looked down at the baby and felt a fierce surge of pride. She'd do it. Her daughter would do everything she wanted and have everything she wanted.

"Do it!" She reached out, handing the child to Ginevra.

Ginevra grin of triumph was fierce. "I knew you'd agree!" She accepted the baby. "Hello sweet Minerva" she stroked the soft cheek. Then she looked up at Isobel and chuckled. "Your family's going to be furious about that, by the way."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: It's been many years since I've written anything. This is really an exercise in "just write the fist thing that comes to mind, so long as you write". I apologise for my tone and rhythm, these will vary throughout the story as I try to find my "voice" again.**

November 1945: Cottage of Ginevra Prewett

Ginevra poured a finger of firewhiskey into a tumbler and pushed it towards the woman sitting across the beaten and scarred table. She made a shooing motion at fifteen year-old Fabian, the eldest of her children, to take one year-old Molly upstairs. The children had been so excited to see their "cousin" Minerva for the first time in four years, but playing games was not what the tall, grim-looking witch was here for. She was here to grieve.

Grindlewald's war had left much of the wizarding world in ruins, including both the families McGonnagall and Borthwick. The former had been victims of a muggle air strike. The latter had been destroyed in the final hours of Grindelwald's defence - having been amongst his staunchest supporters. The only family Minerva McGonagall had left were her young brother Malcolm - the same age as Fabian - and the woman sitting in front of her.

Minerva herself had been claimed a hero. Fighting on the frontlines with no compunction, only steely determination and awe-inspiring power. No-one had been more valuable to the Allies, with exception of Albus Dumbledore. Already viewed with cautious admiration following her stellar academic career and immediate acceptance into leading universities and the Ministry, she was doing exactly as Ginevra and Isobel had hoped so many years ago. She was trailblazing for witches.

But the young woman here today, despite her ramrod-straight back and dry emerald green eyes, was showing every one of her emotional scars. The long, elegant hand that held the glass was trembling slightly, and the twist of her mouth told her mother's closest friend that she was moments from breaking down.

Ginevra shook her head sadly. She desperately missed Isobel. Even Robert and Robert Junior - although the son had been following in the footsteps of his father and turning out to be a right stick in the mud, as far as she was concerned. And here was Minerva, carrying not only the weight of her loss, the responsibility for her young brother, the expectations of the wizarding world, but had suddenly come into the inheritance of an entire pureblood estate - even though the poor girl had never so much laid eyes on a single member of the Borthwick family, other than her mother. Not even the maternal great-grandmother she'd been named for.

She held out her arms and the tall young woman stumbled up and around the table. Minerva fell to her knees and buried her head in the older woman's lap, sobbing like a small child as fingers carded soothingly through her ebony hair.

##

June 1970: The Burrow

Molly Weasley choked on her tea. "Uh, pardon?"

"Married, Molly." Minerva smiled indulgently. "It's about time I settled down, don't you think?"

"But, er…" Molly thought furiously. Minerva had never been told about the pale blue thread in her aura. Isobel, her mother had said, had wanted to wait until Minerva was eighteen, but had died before she'd had the chance to tell her, and Ginevra had never found the right opportunity either. Molly had always been intimidated by the tall, stern witch that her mother thought of as a niece. A war hero, the leading world authority on transfiguration, a political powerhouse that had campaigned successfully for the rights of women - and she'd been Minerva's student at Hogwarts, for Merlin's sake - how was she supposed to tell her that her impending nuptials were an exercise in futility?

"Congratulations are generally offered at this point," Minerva observed wryly. "Are you shocked because Amelia is a woman? It is the seventies, you know."

"N-no, of course not!" Molly defended, slightly outraged. "They got rid of that stupid law denying marriage to same-sex couples five years ago. Not that any such law should have existed in the first place!" She took a deep breath. "It's nothing like that at all. Amelia's a lovely woman."

"But?" Minerva put her teacup down and leaned forward a little, raising an eyebrow. "What is it, then? Is it about your mother's cottage? Because we're not going to live there - we're going to buy a house in Hogsmeade."

"My mother gave you that cottage, Minerva, and you may do with it as you please! It's not as though I or the boys will ever use it; for one, there's not nearly enough rooms for Arthur and I!" She patted her belly.

Minerva choked slightly. "Another one?"

"Number three!" Announced Molly proudly.

"Hopefully a girl this time! Ginevra will roll in her grave if after marrying Arthur AND taking his name, you have a gaggle of all boys!"

Molly laughed. "Wouldn't she? But we'll just be happy if it's healthy."

"And that was a lovely distraction, by the way. Why are you hesitant about my marrying Amelia Bones?" Minerva wielded the conversation with skilful precision right back to the topic at hand.

Molly sighed. Why had this all been left at her feet? "Do you love her?" She asked in a rush.

"What kind of question is that? Of course I do! I'm marrying the woman!" Minerva was rightfully indignant.

Molly gulped and bit the bullet. "Youhaveasoulmatethread."

Minerva eyes widened impossibly. "What?" Then she began to laugh. "Oh, Molly," she managed at last. "I can assure you, I do not have a soulmate. A lot of people have seen a lot of things in my aura, but never a soulmate thread!"

So Molly told her what their mothers had done. "It's still pale," she finished. "Whoever he is, he still hasn't been born yet."

Minerva looked at her in sheer disbelief for long moments before anger began to glint in her gaze.

"I… I'm forty-five years old!" She spluttered indignantly. "I'm getting married! How could… when were… why…" she stood. "You know what?" And she apparated with a crack; a whirl of black robes and furious green eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: 1. Minerva's soulmate is not a man. I'm just rolling with the heteronormativity of the times ;)**

 **2\. My maths was off - Molly was pregnant with number two not number three (unless Percy was held back a couple of years... an attractive option, but no)**

 **Thanks for the reviews!**

Hogwarts Castle, June 1970

"You knew?" Minerva was aghast as she stared at Albus Dumbledore.

"Yes, I knew." Albus' blue eyes twinkled maddeningly at her.

"How? Molly said it was hidden from all but her mother's line!" Damn Albus Dumbledore. How was it that he always knew everything?

"I have my ways," his smile was mysterious and she almost threw a book at his head. "I've known since the war."

"And you were, what? Going to let me marry Amelia regardless?"

"You'll always do as you want to, Minerva. You always have." He grinned, remembering the furore she'd created when she sold off the ancestral Borthwick estate, retaining only a few items of family memorabilia to be stored in a vault at Gringott's; in case some long-lost scion of the family should turn up at a later point. Oh, and the books. She'd kept the family library, or course. The wizarding community had been beyond outraged at her callous treatment of her pureblood heritage, but she'd taken little notice. "Besides, unless I'm mistaken, the thread is still pale, is it not? Even if your soulmate were born today, it would be at least twenty years before he's of an age of interest for you. Why should I begrudge you twenty years of happiness with Amelia?"

"Because it's dishonest!" Minerva's anger was now mixing with guilt, and her ire sharpened with it.

"Then tell her."

"I was bloody intending to!" She exploded. "And when she calls off the marriage, I'll not blame her!"

Albus selected a lemon drop from the ever-present dish on his desk. "On the contrary," he mused, "I think you and she are very alike."

"And what is THAT supposed to mean in this context?"

"I've known you a very long time, Minerva. Nearly forty years. And you are a passionate woman."

Minerva paused at his assessment. She felt a recognition at his words.

"You and Amelia love each other very much, but it's not the soul-rending passion of being in true love."

She sputtered for a moment, wanting to contradict him, but she knew he was right.

"You have a comfortable love, one that will support and nourish you through the years, but she's not your soulmate. And I think she knows that as well as you do."

"That doesn't explain why she won't turn and walk out the door as soon as she hears about my thread," she spat bitterly. "In fact, it will just encourage her to do so."

"I don't think so." Albus sucked noisily on his sweet. "She is a year older than you, and seeks much the same from your marriage as you do - comfort and security."

"Even she want to still marry me - which I sincerely doubt - what makes you think that I'll allow this marriage to take place? The vows state 'for life', Albus, not 'until my soulmate comes along and is of age'!"

"Talk to her, Minerva, and for once don't let your sense of honour overrule your judgement. I think you'll be surprised."

"Un-bloody-likely" she muttered disbelievingly. "And speaking of which," she made one of the conversational leaps that so entertained her old friend. "That's another thing! This child, whenever they are born, will most likely attend this very school. Have you thought of that, Albus?" Her outraged flush was now tinged with a slightly green pallor. "He'd be," she swallowed, "my student." The last was almost a whisper.

"Most probably." Albus agreed amiably.

Minerva's outrage took front and centre again. "How can you be so blithe about this?" She demanded. "The situation would be impossible! My soulmate as one of my students? I would never!"

"You know," Albus took on one of his more annoying pastoral tones. "In times past, soulmates were often not told themselves of their threads, even if their families knew of the match right from the start."

Minerva exhaled through her nose, trying to stem her anger.

"And the glamour ensures that no-one other than Molly would be able to recognise him."

"Or you!"

Albus just chuckled. "So there's really no need for such awkwardness if he indeed turned up at Hogwarts as a student."

"I would know!" Minerva roared, losing her ever-precarious hold on her temper.

"Not necessarily." Albus grinned mischievously.

"You, you'd keep it from me?" She didn't know whether what she was feeling was gratitude or more outrage. She was too lost now, too tired of this whole mess. She just wanted to go home to Amelia and pretend that all of this was a bad dream.

"Minerva," his face was entirely serious now. "My old friend. You are the most honorable person I have ever had the fortune to have met. Even if you did know who he was, I do not doubt your ability to deal with the situation with the utmost delicacy and integrity."

She shook her head. "I can't, I just…" she stood up, nearly knocking her chair over. "I just can't think about this anymore."

"Go home. Talk to Amelia. Take a few days, and remember, my dear." He levelled his blue eyes at her and said in his most gentle voice. "I am always here for you."

##

September 19th, 1979: Albus Dumbledore's private quarters

Minerva McGonagall smiled at her wife, Amelia, seated across the polished oak table from her. The moment was private, despite the loud chatter of the small but lively dinner party. Nine years later, she was still amazed by the determination with which her then-fiance had demanded they continue with their wedding, and the happiness they'd enjoyed since. She turned to Filius Flitwick, seated on her left.

"Would you please pass the peas, if you don't mind, Filius?"

He smiled at her as he did so, but before she could grasp the dish, she felt a wave of warmth, followed by a surge of overwhelming electricity, then faceplanted, unconscious, in her plate.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Tone's getting odder. you were warned!**

"A soulmate?" Echoed Poppy Pomfrey loudly, her eyes round with surprise.

"Ssshhh!" Hissed Albus Dumbledore, Molly Weasley, and Amelia Bones in unison.

The four were gathered in the small private room reserved for unwell professors at the far end of the Hogwarts hospital wing. The other guests at Albus' prematurely-ended dinner party - mostly Order members - had bid their host goodnight following Poppy's exit, who had been levitating a still unconscious, lamb stew-decorated Minerva before her.

"But there's never been anything said." Poppy eyed the other three dubiously. "If Minerva McGonnagall had a soulmate thread, all of Britain would know it, and have spent the last several decades waiting with bated breath to see who the poor bastard on the other end was." She remembered Amelia. "No offense."

"None taken." Amelia smirked. "And as to how no-one else knows, ask one of them." She waved at Albus and Molly.

"That's a long story," began Dumbledore.

"The thread was glamoured so no-one could see it." Explained Molly.

Albus harrumphed under his breath. "Poppy, I'm asking you to abide by your oath of healer/patient confidentiality in this. I'm telling you because apparently what affects Minerva's soulmate will have some effect on her also."

"So it's not usual for one to faint when the other is born?" asked Molly eyeing the now-glowing blue thread in Minerva's aura. When she had fainted there been a flash of unearthly blue so bright that it had almost blinded her.

"Who knows?" Said Albus. "Soulmates are so rare that there aren't many records of them. Some are affected by what happens to their soulmate, others aren't. Apart from death, of course. No soulmate ever survives their counterpart's death."

Amelia pursed her lips, remembering too well when her wife had come across that little nugget of information in her own research into her condition. She'd fallen into a deep depression for a week, devastated at the thought that not only did the "poor little bugger" have to put up with "an old harridan" like herself, but now she'd be shaving fifty years off his lifespan as well. Amelia had eventually sent her off to talk to Albus about it, and she'd returned not recovered, but resolved, clutching a small silver vial that she'd stashed somewhere and Amelia had never seen it again.

"So every time something happens to the soulmate…" Poppy began.

"Something… momentous?" Molly interrupted, looking to Albus.

"Or painful?" Amelia's look was a glare.

"Oh, who knows?" Albus repeated, throwing up his arms. "You and Minerva probably know as much as I do, Amelia. All I'm saying is that to keep an eye out, because obviously some things that affect the soulmate will affect her."

All four turned to gaze at the woman lying on the bed.

"I suppose we won't be able to keep from her that he's been born." Molly observed.

"Why would you want to?" Hissed Amelia. "Minerva has never been anything less than completely honest with me, and I'll not start lying to her now."

"It's just that you know Minerva. She'll probably trawl through every birthing record she can get to find the little blighter. I had hoped we could keep it from her until he was at least of age."

##

"Well, I've been through every birthing record I could get my hands on." Minerva told her wife as Amelia walked through the door to their cosy redbrick Hogsmeade house a week later, "and nothing. No baby boys born within a day either side of my…incident." She was still highly sensitive about her stew nosedive.

"Well, that's er…" was it good news? wondered Amelia. Her wife certainly looked much brighter.

"It's good news. If he's not here in Britain, then chances are he won't attend Hogwarts." Minerva smiled up with genuine relief. Amelia saw a weight lifted, that had been on her wife's shoulders since she'd found out about her thread. She didn't mention that perhaps the child was muggle-born. Or, as she suspected - knowing her wife as well as she did - a girl.

##

Thankfully, the effects of Minerva's soulmate on her were few and far between. There was a scabbed knee, the odd second-hand feeling of sadness or delight, and one memorable occasion where she spat an incisor tooth that had been loose for a couple of days clear across the transfiguration classroom. As the years passed, and Voldemort lay low, it was easy to forget that somewhere out there was a child that would change her life beyond recognition or even repair.

##

March 1990, Minerva and Amelia's redbrick house, Hogsmeade

"Do regret it?"

"Again, Minerva?" Amelia rolled her eyes. "My love, I knew what I was getting into when I married you. And I'd no sooner take back our years together than anything."

"I need to be sure." Her wife sighed. "Now that, well…"

"It's so close?"

"Exactly." Minerva looked contemplative, as she often did these days, gazing into the fire.

"Can I ask you a question?" Amelia asked suddenly and her wife turned to her.

"Anything."

"Have you ever considered that perhaps your soulmate bond… well, with so many years between you - not that I think there's anything wrong with that, as I've told you time and time again, but perhaps, I mean has there ever been a case where -"

"Oh, just spit it out, Amelia!"

Amelia grinned at her wife's impatience."What if your soulmate relationship wasn't, well, romantic as such?"

"I beg your pardon?" Minerva looked genuinely perplexed.

"There's all the stories, you see, about the grand love. Tristan and Iseult and the like, and I just wondered if one can be bound to a soulmate who isn't a lover. Who is a ...heart's companion" she laughed at the term she'd just found herself stumbling over. "Or some such nonsense."

Minerva was taken aback. It was something she'd never considered. "I've never heard of it. I… I'd to ask Albus." She frowned distractedly. "Hmmm."

 **A/N: It's romantic. Don't worry.**


End file.
